


new beginnings

by ailurea



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Background Lance/Allura, Canon Divergent, M/M, Mild Angst with a happy ending, New Years, Post-Series, season 8 what season 8
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 00:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17254523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailurea/pseuds/ailurea
Summary: Keith and Shiro wake up married on New Year’s Day on a space equivalent of Las Vegas.It matters both more and less than it should.





	1. new year’s

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Sheith New Year](https://sheithnewyear.tumblr.com/) — thank you to everyone who worked to put this event together!  
> This is one cohesive story, with each chapter matching the theme of the day. Tags will be added as new chapters are posted.
> 
> Thank you to [allie](https://ao3.org/users/artenon/) and [Faia](https://ao3.org/users/FaiaSakura) for helping me wrangle this into something readable.
> 
> Happy new year, everyone! Let's make 2019 amazing. ♥

**i. new year’s**

Keith wakes up on New Year’s Day with regret cloying in his mouth. It tastes something like Jaeger bombs and lime and a bit of bile. His throat is sore and scratchy from his stomach acid eating into it in his sleep.

It's disgusting.

He closes his eyes and tries to think of a reason that he should get out of bed. There’s an argument in the way his bladder is full, but otherwise he comes up empty. There’s nowhere to be until the afternoon, when he promised to spend time in this space equivalent of Las Vegas with everyone else.

Until then, he’s as close to heaven as he can get. He doesn’t feel like he has a hangover—a combination of Galra genes and night-before Keith remembering to stay hydrated. The room is dark due to the curtains over the windows, his pillow is soft, the bed is warm, the blankets are a comforting weight over his body, and there’s a soothing breath lightly tickling the back of his neck.

One of these things is not like the other.

Keith’s eyes fly open again as he reassesses the situation. Aside from the weight of the blankets, there’s the heavier weight of an arm across his waist. And the warmth at his back isn’t from a blanket; it’s radiating onto him like a space heater. A person-shaped space heater.

He hasn’t had a one night stand in a while, but he supposes that’s what being single in space Vegas on New Year’s Eve while surrounded by couples will do to him.

He doesn’t want to risk waking up the stranger behind him just yet, so he starts with sliding the blankets off the top of his body so he can study the arm. Resting across his very naked body is an extremely muscular forearm. A very familiar overly muscular forearm. Then he’s distracted by the ring on the man’s finger.

His first thought is _fuck_ , because helping a stranger commit infidelity is way up there on the list of Shit He Does Not Want To Be Involved In. Then he has the good sense to check his own hands. There’s a matching ring, gleaming incriminatingly from his left ring finger.

“Fuck!”

The man behind him startles awake with a familiar “bwuh?”

Keith rolls over.

It’s Shiro, laying there and blinking at him like a startled deer. He relaxes when he sees Keith’s face, expression turning moony with sleep. “Morning, Keith.”

It’s so fucking cute—Shiro always is—but there are more important matters at hand than how much he wants to grab Shiro’s face and kiss him. “Shiro, where are we.”

Shiro’s alertness flips on like a switch at Keith’s tone. He surveys the space around them. “Um, my hotel room?”

“More specifically.”

“We’re… in bed?” Shiro says, frowning at him, then at the bed and his bare chest as the words leave his mouth. “Together.” He lifts the covers, looks at Keith. “And we’re naked. Keith, why are we naked in bed together?”

Keith slams the covers back down. He can feel himself flushing. “That’s what I’m trying to ask you!”

Shiro blinks like it’ll help him remember. “I—I’m not sure. We were… we were counting down for the new year together, right?“

Keith nods. He remembers standing next to Shiro, close so that they could warm each other in the chill of the outside air. He remembers wanting to kiss Shiro once the countdown ended—wanting to pull him down and confess with his body as they rung in the new year—but then Shiro pulled him into a hug and murmured, “Happy new year, Keith” into his ear and Keith wrapped his arms around the expanse of Shiro’s back and embraced reality, instead.

He didn’t need to make a resolution for the new year; he already had one that he would keep for the rest of his life: no matter what happened, no matter where life took them, he would always be there for Shiro.

“We counted down for the new year,” Shiro says again, looking at the ceiling now. “Then we went to a bar. You bought the first round, I think. Then… I’m not sure.” He looks under the covers again. “I still have socks on. That means we didn’t do anything, right?”

“We might have done _some_ thing.” Keith holds his hand up in front of Shiro’s face and watches the way that Shiro’s eyes hone in on the shine of metal.

Shiro pulls back his own hand to look at it. His mouth falls open a little, but no words come out. Keith fidgets as Shiro rolls over and looks for something off the side of the bed.

He’s seen Shiro at his most inappropriately wasted, a young adult at the Garrison just discovering alcohol and the concept of taking a breather. The problem with drunk Shiro isn’t that he has bad ideas; it’s that he’s suggestible to others’. And Keith hates to think he’s dragged Shiro into something he never would have wanted for himself.

Shiro resurfaces with a datapad that he holds very close to his face. “Recognized by the Legal Universal Bondings Bureau as a legally binding bonding ceremony, providing all benefits and limitations prescribed by local jurisdiction. Keith, we’re—we’re married.” There’s something in his tone, something Keith doesn’t want to try to recognize.

Keith got space Vegas married. To Shiro. The first person in the universe he'd want to marry, and the last person who would want to marry him.

“How do we annul it?” His voice comes out quieter than he intended, and he hates himself for it.

“You—right.” Shiro’s voice is brittle. The stillness of his face is accentuated by the glow of the screen in his hand. “Subject to limitations of the local jurisdiction. Ymirrians bond for life. We'll have to go off-planet.”

Keith sighs. The Blades will be returning for him tomorrow, but then he’ll have to ask his mom to help him annul his Vegas wedding to the man he's been in love with for his entire adult life. “Do you have access to a ship?”

Shiro sets the datapad on the nightstand and rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. “There are some shuttles on the Atlas that can fit us both, but everyone’s going to want to know where we’re going if I request to take them out.”

“Request?” Keith says. “You’re the Captain.”

“The Captain still has to file the paperwork, even if all I’m going to do is approve it myself.” The corner of Shiro’s mouth lifts as he looks at Keith, and his lopsided smile is so cute. He’s so cute. It's the worst possible timing but Keith really, really wants to kiss him.

Keith wonders if he’s still a little drunk.

“Forget it.” Keith flops on his back and throws his arm over his eyes. If he can’t see anything, then maybe, just for a moment, he can exist in nothingness. He can skip rejection, and his mom’s pitying looks, and go straight to grieving for an alternate reality where this would be a cause for celebration.

Shiro was with him, closer than ever but eternally farther than he would like.

“You don’t have to sound like this is the worst possible thing to happen to you.” Shiro’s tone is clearly trying for light, but he’s never been good at hiding his hurt, at least not from Keith.

What he’s hurt by, Keith isn’t sure.

Keith lowers his arm and turns toward Shiro. He’s not looking at Keith, instead focusing on his finger tracing patterns onto the bedspread.

“Shiro, this would be the best possible thing to happen to me,” Keith says, “if you wanted it too. But the last thing I want is to weigh you down.”

“This—you—you’re not weighing me down.” Shiro frowns at him, finger curling into the fabric. “What makes you think I don’t want it?”

_I told you I loved you and you never said anything._

It’s everything he wants to talk about, but also everything he doesn’t. Shiro wouldn’t hurt him, not if he could help it, and he’s not going to put a question in front of Shiro that he won’t want to answer.

Keith tucks in on himself. “You never act like you do.”

“Keith…” Shiro pulls himself closer. He slides an arm around Keith’s side, pressing a hand to his shoulder, and tilts Keith’s chin up with his nose. “Can I kiss you?” His lips brush against the hollow of Keith's throat and Keith swallows against him.

They're both exposed.

Shiro draws back to look at him, and Keith turns away reflexively, from both the gaze and the thought. He's been wanting to kiss Shiro since seeing his face; it doesn't mean he'll actually do it.

“My breath is gross,” he says at Shiro’s hurt look. “Seriously. At least let me brush first.”

Shiro chuckles lowly, and the vibrations go straight to Keith’s core, filling him with warmth. He smiles despite himself—Shiro’s laughter always has that effect on him.

“Mine is probably worse,” Shiro says, close enough that his breath warms Keith’s face, and Keith’s nose wrinkles before he can stop himself. It is pretty bad.

Shiro laughs again. “So, can I?”

If Shiro wants to prove something, he'll let him prove it. Keith leans closer in response, firmly close-mouthed. Shiro meets him halfway, a smile still lingering on his lips.

Then they’re kissing. It's chaste, as far as kisses go, but it feels anything but. The warmth blooming in Keith's gut erupts into flame. He fears it—how easily it can destroy him—but more than that he's compelled by it. He takes hold of Shiro’s waist and uses it to drag him in closer, kiss him more firmly.

After a moment, Shiro draws back, retreating to bury his face against Keith's neck. “I'm not good at this.” His lips burn his confession into Keith’s skin. “I've never been good at this.”

“What's this?” Keith can feel his throat working against Shiro’s lips as he speaks. He swallows again.

Shiro presses his lips against his Adam’s apple. “Making sure that the people I love know that they're loved.”

Keith wants to look at him, but he wants him to feel safe more, so he tucks his chin over Shiro’s head and slides his hand to Shiro’s shoulder to anchor him in place. “I know you love me.” It's impossible not to see the way Shiro has supported him over the years. “I just didn't know it was... like that.”

“Why not?”

_I told you I loved you and you pretended it never happened._

“Do you?” Keith says. “Like that.”

Shiro draws back, finally, to look at him. He cups a hand against his face, runs a thumb against his cheekbone. It’s warm, and calloused, and everything Shiro. “I want to wake up to you,” he says. “Every day for the rest of my life, if you’ll let me.”

“Yes,” Keith says. It’s a fever dream. He’ll wake up at any moment, alone and clinging to the remnants of what can never be. But Shiro’s hand is warm and solid, and so are his lips when they touch his.

Shiro kisses him again, and again, and again, and Keith sinks deeper in him each time. He should stop, should talk about it before they get too far. He’s not going to be able to come back up, not of his own power. But he’s not sure he wants to, and so he lets himself drown.

“Keith,” Shiro murmurs, kissing his cheeks.

They’re wet. They’re wet, because he’s crying.

“I don’t want to wake up,” he whispers.

“It’s not a dream,” Shiro says. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize. I thought… I thought things had changed, for you. I’m sorry.”

Keith doesn’t trust his voice. He holds onto Shiro more tightly instead, kisses him and says with his body what he can’t say in words.

“Come see the sunrise with me,” Shiro says when they break apart.

“The sunrise?” Keith stares at the darkened curtains. His mind is cloudy with Shiro, but even still he feels too well-rested for it to not even be sunrise yet.

“Long nights on Ymir,” Shiro says.

“Won’t your eyes burn?” Keith says. Shiro’s not acting hungover, but he must be to some extent.

Shiro just shrugs. “I feel fine. Will you?”

So they wash up and get dressed. They find their clothing from last night discarded by Shiro’s side of the bed. It all smells like alcohol and vomit, except for their jackets, which are surprisingly clean. They must have taken them off earlier in the night.

It turns out they’re in Keith’s room, not Shiro’s. Shiro’s is next door, but he can’t find his keycard, so he has no choice but to let Keith put him in tight pants and an even tighter shirt. He covers the shirt with his jacket, but his ass is still obscene.

Keith doesn’t notice where his gaze has been focused until Shiro swats him on the ass with his own jacket.

“Stop staring,” Shiro says. His face is red as he hands the jacket to Keith.

Keith flushes too and does, in fact, stop staring as they leave the room. Shiro leads them on a small hike to the top of a nearby hill and sits down at the top. Keith settles beside him. They didn’t wear quite enough clothing for the temperature, and they huddle close together for warmth as they wait.

The sky begins to lighten, the sun threatening to creep over the horizon.

“ _Hatsuhi_.” Shiro’s voice is different, somehow, when he speaks that language Keith rarely hears anymore. “The first sunrise. It’s good luck.”

“Yeah?”

“A new beginning,” Shiro says. “If you see it, it means you’re facing the new year with intention.”

They’ve missed a lot of new year’s days during their time in space, and even more sunrises. Keith takes Shiro’s hand in his, intertwining their fingers, and doesn’t think about everything they’ve lost.

“Keith,” Shiro says as the first rays of light begin to break free of the earth. Their rings shine where they’re resting beside each other. “Stay with me?” He isn’t only talking about now.

_I told you I loved you and you broke my heart._

It’s a conversation for another time. Shiro avoided it first. Let Keith be the one to avoid it now.

And in this new morning, does it even matter? He wants Shiro. Shiro wants him too. This is finally something he can take hold of with both hands, and never let go.

“Yes,” Keith says. He pulls their joined hands to his heart, drawing Shiro in.

Dawn breaks, and with it, the new year begins.


	2. vacation

**ii. vacation**

They find a place for breakfast out in the city. Keith still feels more disgusting than hungry, but Shiro insists that they eat at least a little bit.

“All the firsts of the new year are important.” He’s looking at Keith’s lips as he says it, and Keith smiles and stands closer to him as they walk.

They get some kind of vegetable noodle dish in a light broth that doesn’t do terrible things to Keith’s stomach, then they return to the hotel and get a new keycard for Shiro’s room because Shiro refuses to meet up with the others in Keith’s pants.

“What are we gonna tell them?” Keith says as he sits on the bed and stares at his palms.

Next to him, the dresser drawer closes. Then Shiro’s there, holding a folded-up white shirt and a pair of black pants. He hands them to Keith, and he accepts them without thinking about it. “What do you want to tell them?”

“I don’t know.”

He watches, transfixed, as Shiro changes, trading the clothing in his hands for the clothing coming off Shiro’s body at the appropriate times. He thinks it should be something closer to erotic. It feels domestic instead.

Shiro sits, takes the clothes from him and folds them. “We don’t have to tell them anything. We’re still figuring this out ourselves. Let them figure it out too.”

“That feels like hiding,” Keith says. He’s never hidden anything—his orphanhood, his Galra heritage, his pain and grief and anger. He’s not going to start by hiding Shiro—unless that’s what Shiro wants to do?

“I’m not saying we hide,” Shiro says. “But we don’t have to advertise, either. Until we’re ready, we can just… be us. With rings.”

Keith looks at their rings. He doesn’t remember where they came from, or how they made their way from boxes to their fingers. He doesn’t remember anything that would make them worth remembering. They mean nothing to him, but they also mean everything.

Shiro takes his hand, intertwines their fingers. “Nothing’s changed,” he says, even though everything has. “Maybe we’ll do more now. Kiss, or touch.” He squeezes their joined hands. “But otherwise it’s just us, together, like always.”

“Like always,” Keith says.

He can do that.

\----

They bundle themselves appropriately for the weather this time, with thicker coats and scarves and mittens. The others look similarly cozy when they meet up. It’s easy to tell who the tourists are, because the Ymirrians have adapted to the weather of their habitat and go around lightly clothed. Most everyone else looks like giant marshmallows.

(Though the “giant” is more due to the fact that Ymirrians tend to walk on four limbs, cutting their height in half.)

“We’ve decided to do the ferris wheel first,” Pidge says as they walk up, jerking a thumb at the ride in question. “Mostly because Hunk’s gonna hurl if we do it after lunch.”

The ferris wheel is less a ferris wheel and more of an infinite roller coaster. It’s even shaped like an infinity sign. The riders enjoy a scenic, slow ride up, then a hurtling, twisty ride down to the other side where it begins again. Keith feels a little queasy looking at it—it’s one thing to pilot himself through space in dizzying patterns; it’s another to give up control to a questionable construct.

“It looks like fun. Kind of like the roller coasters on Earth,” Shiro says, and Keith despairs.

“You’re, uh, looking a little green there, dude,” Hunk says as they head over.

“What, too many shots last night?” Lance says.

“Way too many,” Keith says, even though it’s not the reason.

Lance pauses, like he didn’t expect that answer, then announces, “Keith’s going at the end of the line! If you’re gonna barf, it’s not gonna be on me.”

“That’s fair.” The ferris wheel looks even more nauseating up close.

Allura frowns at him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“We don’t have to go on,” Shiro says.

“It’s fine. Really.” Sure, he’s nervous because he’s never been on a roller coaster, but it doesn’t seem dangerous, and Shiro beside him is enough to keep him grounded.

“If you’re sure,” Allura says, but she’s looking at Shiro.

Shiro nods, and they move on into the line.

“What was that?” Keith says.

“You haven’t noticed before?” Pidge says. “Shiro’s a Keith sensor. We use him to figure out if you’re really okay, or if we should stop something, or if you need space. We use you as a Shiro sensor, too.”

They do?

Keith actually can’t recall.

He thinks he only noticed this time because he’s hyperaware of what the team sees when they look at him and Shiro—if anything from their drunken wedding night and quiet morning kisses is now etched into the angle of their bodies or the tilt of their faces.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lance says.

“Yeah, we don’t really have to do it too much anymore,” Hunk says. “Now that we know you better. But you were both kinda hard to read before.”

“Huh,” Keith says, and looks at Shiro.

Shiro shrugs. “Sorry, I’ve noticed for a while. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

He doesn’t. It’s touching, he thinks, that they’re looking out for him in this way. But it’s also a little wondrous and a little terrifying to think that that’s how close he and Shiro are, have been—that everyone has just been accepting them as each other’s conduits to the outside world.

“Huh,” he says again.

“You okay?” Shiro says.

Keith is acutely aware of everyone watching them. He burrows into his coat. “Yeah.”

They’re blessedly at the front of the line. They pay the attendant a few credits each and start piling into the cars, two at a time—Lance with Allura, Hunk with Pidge, and then him with Shiro. Ymirrians aren’t very large, and neither are the seats. Their sides and thighs press tightly together. If they did this the day before, Keith would be dying.

Actually, he’s still dying—just for slightly different reasons.

Shiro takes his hand and lets him squeeze as the car ascends. “Look,” he murmurs. “It’s beautiful.”

Keith glances at it—they’re close to the peak now, and it’s another version of their view from the top of the hill. Like Vegas on Earth, the city is nestled in the desert. The sunlight gleams over the buildings and the sand, casting everything in a golden glow. It reminds Keith of the Garrison, and what they used to have.

But Shiro’s face, cast in the same golden haze, wide smile on his face and eyes alight with wonder and happiness, is by far the most alluring thing here.

_ I love you. _

“You’re beautiful,” he says. It’s not what he means to say, but the words get trapped in his throat, chained down by memories.

Shiro turns to him, and smiles at him, and kisses him, and says, “So are you.”

The ride stills, holding its breath as they reach the peak, and then they fall.

\----

“You look perky,” Lance says as they stumble off the ride.

Keith’s smile is too big, but he doesn’t mind. He caught the adrenaline rush immediately after the first fall, and he and Shiro were giddy with laughter the rest of the way. “It was fun.”

“Glad someone enjoyed it,” Hunk says. He didn’t hurl, but he sounds like he still wants to. Pidge rubs his back from a good foot away.

“The view was quite nice,” Allura says, smiling at Lance. He smiles back at her, and their expressions are undeniably lovestruck.

Keith looks at Shiro’s face, almost by reflex, and Shiro is already smiling down at him. He looks like he wants another kiss, as though they haven’t already kissed enough on the ride. Keith looks away quickly to avoid giving into the impulse. It’s one thing not to hide; it’s another to kiss in front of their friends.

Even Lance and Allura don’t do that.

“Our next stop,” Lance says, “is an all-you-can-eat buffet!”

“I’m excited to see what this buffet-style dining is,” Allura says. “Pidge seems to think I’ll find it very interesting!”

“Yeah, in the most neutral sense of the word,” Pidge says.

“This is either going to be very good for me,” Hunk says, “or very bad.”

It turns out to be very good.

Hunk is revitalized by food, and it ends up that Lance is the one looking nauseous by the time they leave. He got excited picking out things for Allura to try at the buffet line, only to realize she couldn’t eat it all. He had the choice of sacrificing his stomach or sacrificing money to pay the charge for leftover food.

He sacrificed his stomach.

“So many mistakes,” Lance says as they stumble down the street, Allura supporting him. “So many.”

“Vegas is about mistakes, man,” Hunk says. “Hey, we’re not going to a casino next, are we?”

“Casinos are boring,” Pidge says. “We're going to an arcade, conveniently located… right down the street!”

“This is getting to be an expensive day trip,” Shiro says.

“Oh, I convinced the Garrison to let us expense any reasonable costs from our vacation,” Pidge says. “Since we’re the defenders of the known universe and all that.”

“Excuse me?” Lance says, pointing to his stomach. “What was this all for, then?”

“Reasonable costs,” Pidge repeats. “That was clearly avoidable.”

Lance groans.

“So how much is reasonable for us to spend at an arcade?” Keith says, studying the sign outside. It’s a useless effort; he can’t read any of it, and even if he could, he’s iffy on what’s considered normal prices at an arcade, considering he’s never been to one.

“We’re each getting a hundred tokens,” Pidge says, leading them into the building. It’s noisier inside, and somehow both darker and brighter. “You can spend them on whatever games you want, but if you want to buy prizes, you need to win tickets.” She points toward the prize booth, located off to the side. There’s a giant stuffed… something furry… hanging from the ceiling.

“That’s for you, princess,” Lance says.

Allura crosses her arms. “Not if I get it for you, first.”

Lance grins at her. “Oh, you’re on.”

They use a machine to pay for their tokens. Even though they’re called tokens, the machine prints each of them a card to swipe on the games. Lance and Allura immediately head off in search of high-ticket games. Pidge has a specific fighting game she’s looking for, and she takes a quick look between Keith and Shiro before dragging Hunk off with her.

It’s the second time they’ve been left alone in the same day. Keith frowns. “Do you think they know something?”

“They’ve left us alone plenty of times in the past,” Shiro says. He steps closer and slips an arm around Keith’s waist, lightly testing, then resting heavy when Keith doesn’t shy away. “Hey, it’s fine even if they know. Not hiding, not advertising, remember?”

“Right,” Keith says. He consciously presses himself closer to Shiro. “Anything you wanted to do?”

Shiro hums. “Do you think they have DDR in space?”

DDR? Is that an acronym Keith’s supposed to recognize?

“Keith, tell me you know what DDR is.”

Keith scrambles to think. “Something… dead reckoning?”

“Nerd,” Shiro says, with great affection, as he drags Keith toward the games. As though he’s one to talk about being a nerd.

They wander aimlessly up and down the rows—Keith catches a glimpse of Lance and Allura swinging mallets side-by-side—until Shiro lets out a quiet “here we go” and stops them in front of a machine. It’s bright and garish, with two screens set at around their belly buttons and two large metal pads covered in buttons, one on the ground below each screen.

“I used to love this thing,” Shiro says, putting a hand on the side of the machine and stroking it affectionately. “Didn’t think I’d ever get to play it again.” There’s a sad tilt to his smile, and Keith knows that it was more than space that took him away from it.

He ducks into the space under the arm Shiro has on the machine so that it’s resting over his shoulders. “So how do we play?”

Shiro looks at him, surprised, then fond. “Give me your card.”

He swipes their cards, one on each machine, and takes off his coat and mittens and tells Keith to do the same. Their rings are exposed, and Keith swallows and tries to relax. He lets himself get distracted by how Shiro works his way through the menus of the game, choosing options before Keith can even decide what they mean.

“Can you read Ymirrian?” he says, because that’s the only explanation for how Shiro has made his way to some kind of song selection menu, judging from the way the music changes every time he presses a button.

“Nope.” Shiro steps on a button, making a selection. “That’s the best part of arcade games. You can mostly guess your way through. Easy mode to start?”

“I still don’t even know how to play,” Keith says, looking at the buttons on the metal pad beneath his feet. There are a lot of them—eight arrows, pointing in the cardinal and intercardinal directions; a button in the center with a circle on it; and four more buttons, one on each corner, with differently-oriented 90 degree angles on them.

It looks incredibly complicated.

“You’ll see a symbol on the screen, moving,” Shiro says. “You have to hit the button with the same symbol at the right time, when it reaches the top of the screen. Um… it’ll make more sense when you play it. You use your feet to hit the buttons. It’s supposed to be like a dance.”

Dance. DDR. “So DDR is Dance…”

“Dance Revolution,” Shiro says.

“Where’s the other D?”

“Dance Dance,” Shiro says. “Revolution.”

“You say dance twice?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

Shiro laughs. “It’s what it’s called. I don’t know. It’s a classic. Just play the game, Keith.”

The game starts. It goes atrociously for both of them. There are too many buttons and too many symbols flying across the screen. Near the end of the song, Keith is starting to get a grasp of what button to press when, but when the game asks him to hit three buttons at once he begins to suspect he doesn’t have enough feet.

The game announces their failure in universal big red text and sad sound effects before cheerfully requesting more tokens in order to play again.

“I thought you said you’ve played before,” Keith says, watching Shiro’s stricken face.

“Not this one, specifically,” Shiro says. “I swear this game is for quadrupeds. Maybe that’s why the screen’s so low.”

So it isn’t just him. Keith hums. “Well, we do have hands.”

“Keith,” Shiro says. His face is amused horror at Keith’s suggestion. “No.”

“Shiro,” Keith says. “Yes. You’re the one who wanted to play this game.”

“I mean yes, but…”

Keith quirks a brow, and Shiro sighs and takes out the cards again. “This is only because I think you’ll enjoy it.”

“Don’t lie to yourself,” Keith says.

Shiro rolls his eyes, but he does, in fact, enjoy it. It feels ridiculous to be on hands and feet, but it’s much easier, and damn if it isn’t fun to be wildly jumping and hitting on a mat for non-combat related purposes. They still fail the game, but they’re laughing at themselves and each other as they stumble away from it. Shiro is grinning wildly, eyes bright with exertion, and the aerobics have left him pleasantly flushed.

_ I love you. _

His words still won’t come out, but they’re trying, and he wants them to, he wants them to.

Keith crowds Shiro into some kind of flying game with a dark curtain over the entrance and kisses him soundly against the plastic seats. Shiro gives into it easily, helps Keith climb into his lap and kiss him deeper.

They break apart, panting. Shiro’s hands have snuck into his shirt and his thumbs are stroking along his hips. Keith’s hands are on Shiro’s shoulders, his ring shining from the glow of Shiro’s arm and the vibrant colors of whatever’s on the screen behind him. Shiro follows his gaze to his shoulder, then carefully takes Keith’s hand in his, and presses his lips to the ring.

“Keith—“

_ I love you. _

“I love you,” Keith says, tearing the words out of his chest and reopening the wound that’s been scarred over.

It feels like too few words for what it means. For what he means.

Shiro’s gaze is heavy on him as he draws Keith’s hand to his heart and leans in, touching their foreheads together. Keith wants to hold his breath, but he also wants to breathe—breathe so much and so deeply that Shiro’s scent will never leave him.

“I love you,” Shiro says, and it sounds like too few words for what he’s saying, but it’s healing nonetheless.

The moment isn’t glamorous—it’s not in the light of the sunset, as he’d dreamed of, or under the starry night sky—but even being cramped in a dingy arcade game can’t numb the wonder and the relief that Keith feels at hearing the words fall from Shiro’s mouth, at seeing them shaped by his lips and gifted solely to Keith.

He can ignore the years of silence if this is what he can have now.

“Stay with me,” Keith says.

“Forever,” Shiro agrees.

It’s a sweet thing said in the moment, and not a promise he can keep, but Keith will take it and treasure it all the same.

He loves Shiro.

Shiro loves him.

There isn’t anything more he can ask for.


End file.
